George Fitzmaurice
George Fitzmaurice (born February 13, 1885 in Paris , † June 13, 1940 in Los Angeles ) was an American film director of French - Dutch descent.
Life
George Fitzmaurice attended the art academy in Paris to become a painter. In the first decade of the 20th century he emigrated to the USA, where he started working as a set designer for the theater. In 1908 he came to film as a screenwriter. He worked as a director from 1914 and quickly demonstrated a keen understanding of visual effects and elegant picture compositions. He first worked for Paramount , where he directed The Cheat with Pola Negri and some important films with the superstar of the day, Rudolph Valentino . He was particularly innovative here, both aesthetically and technically. In 1921 and 1922 he also made two films in London, for which the young Alfred Hitchcock drew the subtitles a few years before he began his own directing career.
From 1925 Fitzmaurice was then under contract with Samuel Goldwyn , where he was largely responsible for the success of the screen duo Ronald Colman and Vilma Bánky , which he led through some very elaborately produced melodramas. Similar to George Cukor later , he gained a reputation as a woman director who always directed his productions towards his leading actresses. With the advent of talkies, he helped Ronald Colman - whose career continued unlike that of his partner Banky - to even greater fame, for example in the elegant crime thriller Raffles , started by Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast , and The Devil to Pay .
From 1931 to 1938 George Fitzmaurice was a contract director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . Similar to Richard Thorpe , Jack Conway or WS van Dyke, he adapted to the studio's own style and placed himself at the service of the star system. He worked with the studio's top stars, such as Myrna Loy and Norma Shearer . Above all, however, he led Greta Garbo to one of her greatest financial successes in 1931 : Mata Hari had very little to do with the real life of the spy, but is still a prime example of melodramatic Hollywood productions of that day. In the following years the focus changed George Fitzmaurice's films focus on exoticism and tragedy. An exception is the unjustifiably largely forgotten film How You Wish Me Wishes , which adapted relatively freely the play of the same name by Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello and shows Greta Garbo in an unusual role alongside Erich von Stroheim . Instead, Fitzmaurice devoted himself to more cheerful films that were always prominently cast and were considered the studio's prestige productions, such as Suzy with Jean Harlow and Cary Grant or Finale in St. Petersburg with William Powell and two-time Oscar winner Luise Rainer . These films, which from today's perspective can be considered quite entertaining star vehicles, fell short of the producers' expectations at the time. Your director quickly found himself only working on B-Movies, whereupon he left MGM and ended his life's work with two long-forgotten films.
George Fitzmaurice had a daughter, who was born in 1929, with his second wife. He died of blood poisoning in 1940 at the age of 55. He has been remembered by a star on the Walk of Fame since 1960 .
Filmography (selection)
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literature
- Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 3: F - H. Barry Fitzgerald - Ernst Hofbauer. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 7.
Web links
- George Fitzmaurice in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ George Fitzmaurice. Retrieved May 3, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fitzmaurice, George |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American film director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 13, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 13, 1940 |
| Place of death | los Angeles |